EDITORIAL

Welcome to the Červená Barva Press August Newsletter, 2024

Hi Everyone-

A big change for our monthly newsletter. It will now only be posted on the following months: August, Sept., October, November, December, March, April, and May. There will be no newsletter for June, July, January, and February. If we have any announcements that should be shared, it will be in a regular email.

We published 2 new books From Macedonia. I absolutely love these books.

 

WINDOW OF BABEL by Borche Panov Translated from the Macedonian by Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska

HOUSE OF CONTRASTS by Daniela Andonovska-Trajkovska

Order at: The Lost Bookshelf

I hope you are doing the Sealey challenge this month. I am. I have so many poetry books to read, This will be great. I am happy this is done every August. Reading a poetry book a day will help me catch up on my reading.

BLUE RICE
An Interview with author Frances Park by Susan Isla Tepper

I don't think I will ever forget your character Hanhee (Honey). Was she influenced by someone you met along life's highway?

Although my heroine is fictional, the novel would've never been penned if not for a very petite Korean woman named Mrs. S. whom I met in the fifth grade when I was tutoring her son. I only vaguely recall the son and our study time, and nothing about her white Army husband. But how could I forget Mrs. S? Unlike the Korean moms I'd met in post-war Seoul, Mrs. S. with her sweet thick accent in the American burbs was vivacious, girlishly singing and dancing while doing her chores, trotting me into her kitchen with the offer of endless treats. Her spirit and open-armed affection stayed with me long after my family moved away. Decades later, I learned from my mom that Mrs. S. was illiterate and had worked in a brothel in post-war Korea. Somehow, I could see that.

In hindsight, Mrs. S. was either grateful to be alive or making the best of what war did to her and millions of others. Or both.

The first chapter A Monsoon Song is set in a Korean brothel. This was an edgy choice but absolutely essential to what transpires in the book.

Yes, and as I mention in the novel, writing Blue Rice was like living a dream from scenes my late mother shared with me. One day, she was telling me about how, soon after she married, she spotted a line of American GIs outside a door in Seoul. Naively, she asked her driver about why they were gathered there. His response was something along the lines of "Oh, you are too innocent to know about such things." Later, she gathered the truth.

Without bringing in the character of Joe, do you think Hanhee would have been forever subjugated to live this demeaning existence, due to the disastrous aftermath of the Korean War?

The optimistic me likes to think that my heroine had the soul, ingenuity and spunk - not to mention a bit of luck - to find a way out. The realistic me wonders.

What influenced your decision to bring in the character of Kissuni who was Hanhee's best friend in South Korea?

Thanks for asking about Kissuni. For a little background, I've used the name "Kissuni" in three different books - my memoir That Lonely Spell (Heliotrope Books), my co-authored children's book Good-bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong (National Geographic Books), and in Blue Rice. None of the characters bear any resemblance, but it's my homage to a poor Korean maid who watched over me one summer during a visit to Seoul when I was a child. Like Mrs S., she has stayed with me my entire life. Of the three works, only the memoir captures the true Kissuni. I still get choked up thinking about when we said good-bye and fearing what the future held for her.

In Blue Rice, as in my life, I believe it's important to find at least one profound best friend in life. My heroine has two - one in South Korea, one in America. Both will help chart her life, even long after they're gone. In Kissuni's case, even after her death, she remains in Hanhee/Honey's life in an ethereal form. It's up to the reader to conclude whether these scenes are dreams or reality.

Did you know in advance that there would be a big switch in locale?

Yes. Again, the move to America was fated in Blue Rice and perhaps in my mother's life. Similarly to the novel, she was told by a starving and strange Buddhist monk who knocked on her door that she would come to America. I'm not certain what year this was but I do know that leaving South Korea was not on her radar - yet the monk's prediction was correct.

If it weren't for Mrs. Church, do you think Hanhee would have broken down?

No, I believe she would have survived and found a way to thrive. I just do.

Again, in creating Emma Church's character, my mother inadvertently provided me with rich material. Early on, my parents had to temporarily live in a Harvard Square rooming house/hotel of sorts before their apartment in Brighton was ready. One day, my mom was coming up the stairs when just then, a door opened - there stood an elderly lady needing her help to open a jar. The two became friends and I understand she was a kindly widow whose only (occasional) visitor was a son. Once I heard this story, Mrs. Church was born.

In closing, I wanted your readers to know that Blue Rice is dedicated "To all the lives lost and souls shattered during the Korean War, and to my late mother who lived and breathed it as she carried on in America, humming Korean songs."
Thank you.

Extinction Wednesday: A Memoir by Joey Nicoletti
Reviewed by Susan Isla Tepper

Extinction Wednesday: A Memoir by Joey Nicoletti
Bordighera Press, 2024

If you are expecting a traditional memoir that goes into a great deal over major points in the author's life, you will not find it in this book. Instead, Joey Nicoletti has taken an often fractured childhood, telling it from the close POV of himself as a boy, thus showing what clever boys will do to escape trauma. This boy escaped into movies and comics, and scenes of the family interactions are sometimes set in a movie house.

Take the chapter GONNA CRY NOW which is a lighter moment and begins:

"There is no frustration like a dissatisfying ending to a movie with an Italian American Protagonist. Such was the case for my Grandfather Joe and my father, with whom I saw the first Rocky when I was a child...

Seeing Rocky is one of my most memorable movie-theatre experiences, in large part due to Grandfather Joe's reaction to the ending, when Apollo Creed wins his boxing match over the underdog unknown club fighter from South Philadelphia, Rocky Balboa, and retains his title as the Heavyweight Champion of the World in a split decision... Grandfather Joe was outraged. He did not agree with the movie's turn of events. "Son of a bitch, they screwed the Italians again," he shouted, as he threw a half-full paper bucket of popcorn and large soda at the screen."

Nicoletti grew up in the swinging 70's which wasn't an easy time for the country or for anyone, really. His parents were working class people who provided as best they could for their family, yet found themselves, especially his mother, pulled into the counter-culture allure of rock music and weed. I believe the kids of that era were confused by this culture split-away from their earlier more conservative childhoods. The Vietnam War flooded the TV screens, and Civil Rights was on the march. It was a lot of violence and bled into the kids.

From the chapter Wine and Shine:

"Years would pass before I read The Shining... Movies like The Shining are emotional touchstones... takes me back to Beefsteak Charlie's. Eating my weight in shrimp and salad puts my parents' enjoyment of endless pitchers of Sangria in perspective. Recalling their intoxication that night still gives me pause, but it also makes me see them as human beings; as young adults having fun, grateful for the opportunity to live in the moment; not preoccupied with confrontations, finances, or report cards."

I grew up a little before the author, in the same neighborhood on Long Island, and knew the same diners and high schools, pizza parlors and all the rest that he frequented. I was intrigued by his take on place, those very same streets I stomped. Especially L Street, where the geese came out each morning to terrorize the kids on their way to the school bus.

This unique memoir is told expansively with great heart. Available from Amazon (and other online vendors): https://www.amazon.com/Books-Joey-Nicoletti/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AJoey+Nicoletti

DISPATCH FROM THE FRONT:

In Closing...

See you next month
Gloria

Červená Barva Press Staff

Gloria Mindock, Editor & Publisher
Renuka Raghavan, Assistant Editor, Publicity
Flavia Cosma, International Editor
Helene Cardona, Contributing Editor
Andrey Gritsman, Contributing Editor
Juri Talvet, Contributing Editor
John Wisniewski, Interviewer
Miriam O' Neal, Poetry Reviewer
Annie Pluto, Poetry Reviewer
Christopher Reilley, Poetry Reviewer
Susan Tepper, Poetry Reviewer
John Riley, Poetry and Fiction Reviewer
William J. Kelle: Webmaster

Gene Barry (In Memoriam)
Karen Friedland (In Memoriam

Former Staff:
Neil Leadbeater

See you next month!

POETRY READINGS

Please visit the readings page:
http://www.cervenabarvapress.com/readings.htm

SIGNUP FOR THE NEWSLETTER:

If you would like to be added to my monthly e-mail newsletter, which gives information on readings, book signings, contests, workshops, and other related topics...

To subscribe to the newsletter send an email to:
newsletter@cervenabarvapress.com with "newsletter" or "subscribe" in the subject line.

To unsubscribe from the newsletter send an email to:
unsubscribenewsletter@cervenabarvapress.com with "unsubscribe" in the subject line.

Index | Bookstore | Our Staff | Image Gallery | Submissions | Newsletter | Readings | Interviews | Book Reviews | Workshops | Fundraising | Contact | Links

Copyright @ 2005-2024   ČERVENÁ BARVA PRESS - All Rights Reserved